STRANGER SCRIPTURES

Luke 14:25-31

Have you ever read something in the Bible and been thoroughly confused about what it meant or how it fit with the rest of the Scriptures?

Maybe you feel really comfortable with the Jesus you know and accepted as Lord and Savior, but you come across a verse that doesn’t really seem to fit.

What we believe about the Bible is absolutely paramount to our faith.

2 Timothy 3:16–17 ESV

16 All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, 17 that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.

If we believe that ALL Scripture is inspired by God, then we can’t just set some verses aside became they make us uncomfortable. We have to believe every single word of this Bible as deeply as we believe the passages we know that make us feel good.

John 3:16 is awesome. Mark 11:22-24 are powerful. Psalm 91 is comforting. Those are easy to believe and memorize and confess and claim all day long. What do we do with some of these others, though? If you’re able to disqualify even one verse as not being born out of the heart of God, you open up the conversation for any verse to be thrown out.

For the next few weeks, we’re going to be dissecting some of the most commonly misunderstood verses in the Bible. I believe this will help us to be stronger in our faith and more assured that the Word of God in its entirety is useful to teach us what is true and make us realize what is wrong in our lives, according to Paul’s letter to Timothy.

The Bible was not written for your comfort. It was not meant to reinforce the instincts of your flesh or affirm your feelings. It is Jesus on paper, which means that it is going to challenge your paradigms. It’s going to disrupt your comfort zone.

At the same time, God is not schizophrenic. He doesn’t suffer from an identity crisis. He is consistent, which means His Word is consistent. In this series, we’re going to take a closer look at some passages in the Bible that may seem confusing or even contradictory on the surface and discuss their real meaning and how they fit into the truth of who God is, His heart for you, and how the whole Bible shows us that without exception.

Every weekend, we’ll put up a poll on Instagram with four options from which you can choose which passage you’d like to discuss the following Tuesday. We did this last week and the overwhelming majority of you picked the same verse, so let’s kick this series off tonight with Luke 14:25-33.

Luke 14:25–33 ESV

25 Now great crowds accompanied him, and he turned and said to them, 26 “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. 27 Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. 28 For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it? 29 Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, 30 saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish.’ 31 Or what king, going out to encounter another king in war, will not sit down first and deliberate whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand? 32 And if not, while the other is yet a great way off, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace. 33 So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.

I read you the whole passage, because context is important from the very beginning. The first verse starts by telling us that there was a great crowd with Jesus.

The Greek word for “crowds” comes from ochlos. It refers to a “wide public,” “a horde,” and “an undisciplined mass.” In the Gospels, crowds usually represent fickleness. The people come hoping to see a miracle. They get offended and leave. They follow Jesus until it’s no longer in their own personal interests.

Let’s look at another passage that shows us people deserting Jesus to give us some more context.

John 6:60–69 ESV

60 When many of his disciples heard it, they said, “This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?” 61 But Jesus, knowing in himself that his disciples were grumbling about this, said to them, “Do you take offense at this? 62 Then what if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before? 63 It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is no help at all. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life. 64 But there are some of you who do not believe.” (For Jesus knew from the beginning who those were who did not believe, and who it was who would betray him.) 65 And he said, “This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father.” 66 After this many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him. 67 So Jesus said to the twelve, “Do you want to go away as well?” 68 Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, 69 and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God.”

The hard saying was actually another strange passage in which Jesus said that feeding on His flesh and drinking of His blood abides in Him. It was prophetic and they didn’t get it, so this is how they responded.

It tells us that many turned back and no longer walked with Him. Why? They didn’t get what they wanted out of following Him. They wanted the spectacle. They’d heard the stories. Maybe even seen some miracles with their own eyes. Once He started talking about stuff they didn’t understand, though, they just left.

Crowds are fickle. They’ll turn on you. Jesus saw this. It’s still true today.

We see Jesus attempting to warn the crowd and correct their misconceptions about what following Him really meant. They were expecting a political revolution at any moment. Instead, He was preparing to die. He tells them four things that being His disciple will require.

1.) Hating your family (Verse 26). We’ll come back to that.

2.) Carrying a cross (verse 27).

3.) Counting the cost to build a tower (Verses 28-30).

4.) Planning a battle (Verses 31-32).

Let’s start with hating your family. The greek word for “hate” is the word miseō. It’s the word usually used in the Septuagint to translate the Hebrew word śānē. That’s important, because Jesus spoke Hebrew and used Hebrew idioms. In the Old Testament, loving one person more than another is described as “loving one and hating another.”

We see him mention this another time.

Matthew 6:24 ESV

24 “No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.

It’s the same thought. The word is best translated as meaning “leave aside,” “abandon,” and “love less.”

It’s not a hate of detestation or rage. It’s about preference and primary allegiance to Jesus above all. No one can take His place in our lives. If we’re going to be His disciples, He has to come first at all costs.

There is no relationship that can take priority. You can’t make an idol out of your spouse or your kids or your friends or even your parents. He must come first.

Even Godly people can’t be first. They can point you to Jesus, but they can’t take His place. Following Jesus means sacrificing everything and putting him first. He will not share that place in your heart.

You cannot be more attached to anything than you are to him. Your family, your race, your ideology, your ideas, your experiences, your trauma, your hurt. None of those things can be more important to you than simply following Him.

That means that nothing is more sacred than Him. It means that knowing Him more might lead to you having to change what you’ve always believed about something. It might mean that your political affiliation has to change. It might mean that your pride has to be laid down in order to know Him and follow Him in a way that reflects His position on the throne of your heart. He just doesn’t want to be your Savior; He demands to be your Lord.

Jesus said that you have to bear your own cross to be His disciple. That means that you love Him more than your own life on earth. When it costs you everything, is He still worth following?

He said that no one builds a tower without counting the cost. We can modernize that a little. No one embarks upon building a house without knowing what it’s going to take to finish it. You can’t get halfway through building something before you start budgeting. Jesus is asking anyone who would say they want to follow Him to consider it all.

He gives one more example. No one goes to war and risks lives without attempting to make peace first. There is a price.

Following Jesus isn’t something you do halfheartedly. It has to be first place. It has to be more important than anything else. I want to invite you tonight to follow Him. Follow Him more closely and follow Him at the expense of everything else. It’s worth it. He is worth it.